Restoring deleted Mailbox from Time Machine

As my I just changed servers for my domain (and emails) I needed to create a new account.
Before realising what was happening - I had lost whole inbox and sent items (over 1400 emails!).
After the first panic - I though everything's fine: lets just restore from the Time Machine back up.
In Time Machine, I navigated to time showing the 'old Inbox' and clicked restore. Despite apparent window showing the restore in progress, nothing happens and no emails are to be found in any new mailbox or folder anywhere within Mail. After several desperate attempts - the over 800 inbox emails suddenly appear like magic on Mail and I am able to transfer them to the 'new Inbox'. Could have danced around the office..!
Now trying the same strange process with the Sent Items. Again the same problem but this time no matter how many times it keeps telling me it's been done - not a single restored email appears in Mail. Not even when as a test I try to restore only one email.
What on EARTH is going on.
Could someone smarter than me please help how I could get past this problem. All help GREATLY appreciated!

Did this solve your problem? I have the same problem and rebuilding the inbox pulls emails from the server again, but the problem is (like you mentioned) that the server is also empty and thus the inbox will be empty as a result of IMAP syncing after a rebuild command. I have tried everything, even restoring the entire mail folder and preferences files from a backup with no results!

Similar Messages

Restore deleted mailboxes fro time machine

I have accidentally deleted an email account and lost all the emails. They are on my time machine backup somewhere, but I can't find them because it doesn't show the user library. Does anyone know how to restore mailboxes from time machine back onto my macbook air please? (OS 10.7.5)

Bring the Mail browser window forward, then enter Time Machine. Scroll back in the time-travel view to the most recent snapshot containing the messages you want to restore. Select the messages, then click Restore. The messages will be restored to a new mailbox. From there you can move them wherever you like.

Cannot restore a mailbox from Time Machine

On the recent Yosemithe I cannot restore a mailbox from my Time Machine backup. I proceed exactly as described in the Mail (Yosemite): Restore mailboxes and their content article. However, nothing happens after the process window completes. The restored content does not appear anywhere.
Any ideas?

Although you can restore messages from a Time Machine snapshot within the Mail application, it generally won't work with messages that were saved by an obsolete version of Mail. In that case, you have to use an alternative method.
Triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:
~/Library/Mail/V2
Right-click or control-click the highlighted line and select
          Services ▹ Open
from the contextual menu.* A folder should open. Inside it are subfolders representing your Mail accounts. The names refer to the email addresses you use.
Enter Time Machine and scroll back to the snapshot you want. Select the account folders you want and then select Restore ... to... from the action menu (gear icon) in the toolbar of the snapshot window. Restore the folders to the Desktop, not to their original location.
From the Mail menu bar, select
          File ▹ Import Mailboxes...
Choose Apple Mail as the format and import from the mailboxes in the folders you restored to the Desktop. The imported messages will appear in a new mailbox. Move the ones you want to keep wherever you like and delete the rest. Then delete the folders on the Desktop.
*If you don't see the contextual menu item, copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. In the Finder, select
          Go ▹ Go to Folder...
from the menu bar and paste into the box that opens by pressing command-V. You won't see what you pasted because a line break is included. Press return.

How do I restore iCloud mailboxes from Time Machine without losing new mail?

This morning when I opened my laptop and checked my email, Apple Mail decided to flag every single email in my three separate Apple-related accounts ([email protected],[email protected], and [email protected])—some 14,500+ emails total. None of the emails in my comcast or yahoo accounts were affected. Of course, each of the three accounts is set to download copies to my laptop as well as keep them on the server, so now all of those emails are flagged across the board—on my iMac, my iPhone, my iPad mini as well as my laptop. Yay. Since some of the emails were actually flagged intentionally by me over time, I don't want to just unflag everything or I'll lose my flags as well as the ones spontaneously generated this morning.
My questions are:
1) If I use a Time Machine backup from last night to restore the three affected mailboxes, will iCloud accept them as the de facto most up-to-date versions, or do I still have to go through some complicated process in order to convince the cloud that the 14,500+ unflagged emails don't then need to be "updated" to flagged status?
2) More importantly, will the cloud still sync properly so that I still get all of the emails that came since last night? I'm fine if the absence of the more recent emails from the "new" (actually older TM) mailboxes is interpreted as though they've been deleted, since my preferences are set to keep deleted email on the server for a month. But it would be a problem if those emails simply disappear into the ether.
3) Does anyone have any idea what might have caused the random flagging in the first place and/or suggestions for keeping it from happening in the future?
I remember vaguely that in the early days of Time Machine, restoring iCloud mailboxes was a complicated process in order to trick the cloud into accepting the Time Machine backup as the latest and greatest version. I take it that's no longer such a tricky proposition nowadays, since a search of Apple's knowledge base yielded little information on it. I'd appreciate some confirmation on that, however, so I know what to expect after the restore.
Thanks!
I'm going to try cross-posting this issue in both the iCloud and Time Machine forums since it's some of both. Apologies in advance if that causes confusion.

I set up an admin account for myself, logged on to it, and then followed the procedure in the help file to delete his account, saving it as a .dmg file. Then, when he asked for his old emails, I followed the procedure in the help file to restore a deleted user account and copied the contents of the .dmg into it.
I'm not entirely confident I got the restoration sequence right, since I find the order of steps in the help file confusing. But everything except the Mail data seems to be recovered.
Another source of trouble may be the email account settings: when I opened Mail under his log-on, there were no accounts set up: I recreated them using his email address and password, but Mail may well be treating these as new accounts, rather than re-opened old accounts.
Thanks, John

How to retrieve accidentally deleted mailboxes from Time Machine?

I recently did a reinstall and, winding up with two Mail programs, trashed the one I was "sure" was the new, bogus one. Unfortunately, it was my original Mail program, including the mailboxes with letters from Swedish relatives, important addresses, etc. Going back into Time Machine I found strange-looking references to the boxes but couldn't figure out out to make any of it readable. I've come across advertisements for Disk Warrior, Tech Tool, and several other programs, and came close to buying them all at once before cooling down a bit. Any suggestions about avenues worth pursuing would be appreciated. (Or even if it's likely to be a lost cause.)
Cap

There's the Mail program and there are stored 'mailboxes' with the data in them. Deleting a version of the Mail program shouldn't affect the latter. If that's all you've done then your mail data should be where it has always been. My guess (and I'm not an expert in Mail) is that you have ended up with a different version of Mail to the one you've been using and it doesn't store its mailboxes in the same way so isn't finding your data. I would suggest asking the question of the Mail forum and give them the version number of the Mail program you have and any info you have about the version you deleted.

Restoring deleted books from Time Machine

Hi all,
I deleted one of my keepsaker books and I'd like to restore it from my Time Machine. However, I had no idea what file or folder I need to restore. I have other books in my iphoto but every time I search then in Finder i did not find any file or folder related to, just the pics. How should I proceed?
Thank you very much!
P.

Books are virtual things that exist only in the iPhoto database until you preview and/or upload them
Quit iPhoto, Open Time Machine and go back in time to a time before you deleted the book,select the iPhoto library (in your pictures folder by default) and click restore - restore to the desktop so as not to overwrite your current iPhoto library - depress the option key and launch iPhoto and select the iPhoto library you just restored on your desktop and verify your book
You may want to look at Old Toad's tutorial #9a on archiving an iPhoto book for later use - http://web.mac.com/toad.hall/ToadsTutorials/No._9a.html
LN

Emails in restored mailbox from Time Machine are not visible

I have an IMAC 5.1 with OSX 10.6.8. When I restored a mailbox using Time Machine, the mailbox appears in Apple Mail however no emails are visible even though they are present in the folder in library/mail/mailboxes in Finder. Any suggestions on how I can make the emails visible?
Thanks

I managed to find the solution. In Mail under Mailbox in the header there is a Rebuild button. I pressed it and my emails are now visible.

Is it possible to delete files from time machine?

Is it possible to delete files from time machine? I had a drive crash, restored the files to a new drive, and now the old versions and the new versions of the files are both backed up, taking up a mountain of drive space. Do I just have to wait 'til the drive gets full and then tell it what to delete first?

Hi, I need help in a related problem. I have 500gb time capsule. I needed larger hard drive, so I now use TM to back up to a different 1tb hard drive. So I don't need the TC as a TM back up device. But I want to use the TC's hard drive as an extra external hard drive. I deleted the files that were on it. but it still shows it has a sparsebundle file with a size of over 400gb ( probably the size of the old backups). When I use disk utility to try to erase it, I am not offered the erase tab. This "disk" does show on the desk top as a mounted disk (I think) with only 53 gb free. How can I set this up so all the disk space is free and I can use it for storing files, not as a back up? Thanks

How do you delete file from time machine back up?

How do you delete file from time machine back up?

This from Apple KB Article If Time Machine is not in your Dock, you can enter Time Machine from the Menu Bar or System Preferences.
Deleting data from a Time Machine backup
To delete all backups of one or more items from a Time Machine backup, follow these steps:
Click the Time Machine icon on your Dock to enter the Time Machine restore interface.
Click on the item you would like to delete. Command-click to select multiple items.
Control-click (or right click) the highlighted item(s) and select "Delete All Backups of..." from the contextual menu, or select "Delete all backups of..." from the Action Item menu.
Authenticate with an administrator password when prompted.

Had to restore my iMac from Time Machine. After the restoration all programs are functioning except my Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design Premium. When I start any program in the suite the error message, "Licensing for this product has stopped working." I rest

I had to restore my iMac from Time Machine. After the restoration all programs are functioning except my Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design Premium. When I start any program in the suite the error message, "Licensing for this product has stopped working." I restarted the computer and tried again to run Photoshop and the same error message appeared. The message was followed by a message that stated that I needed to contact Adobe technical support and mention Error: 150.30. I need Adobe technical support to provide me a solution for my problem so I can continue using my Adobe products installed on my computer.

Unfortunately when Adobe products are restored from backup, especial CS4 and especially Mac, it breaks licensing.
There is a python script included in the license recovery kit that should work if you are familiar with Terminal.
If not, you must reinstall your CS4 suite. You don't need to delete your preferences, so it should be the same as before.
Error "Licensing has stopped working" | Mac OS
Gene

Empty iTunes, then Restore Some Playlists from Time Machine?

My MacBook Pro is full, mainly because of the massive collection of music. Everything is backed up on Time Machine. I want to reduce my iTunes library by about 50% to regain some capacity. Can I delete my entire iTunes library off the MacBook, then reinstall only the playlists that I want from Time Machine? What's the best/safest way to do this?

+I just restored my MBP from Time Machine, everything went fine. But I feel my MBR start up much slower than before. So now I want to do a clean install Leopard.+
Wait on the erase and install. Launch Disk Utility which is in the Applications > Utilities folder and Verify your disk and repair permissions. If Verify shows any errors boot from the Leopard install DVD by holding the "c" key down until the spinning gear appears. Pick a language and choose Utilities > Disk and run Repair until no errors appear. Repair permissions.
If that doesn't work try resetting the PRAM which quite often fixes slow boot times.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=2238
+Would like to ask you guys who experiences in Time Machine that after installing Leopard, I want to restore some applications from Time Machine such as MS office, Wow, Photoshop...Will they fully function if I restore from TM?+
I don't know about Wow but Photoshop and MS Office install too many files in too many places for it to be practical to restore them from Time Machine backups after doing an erase and install. You need to reinstall those from the original disks for those applications.

Restoring iCal Events from Time Machine

Hi
I read a few threads that were related to my question, but it was more from moving over files from different versions of the operating software. Here is my dilemma:
Somehow I erased all my iCal events. They were syncing with Entourage. I went into iCal because I had some duplicates and deleted event duplicates, when I did that I somehow deleted all my events. I do have time machine and have a back up of iCal. I restored the program from Time Machine, but the events are not back. I suspect that I need to restore the actual files that must be kept in a database somewhere?
Will someone please tell me how to restore the actual events and where exactly I can find the iCal events data. My plan is that once I restore iCal I will export and import into Entourage.
I really do not want to lose all my events. Thank you in advance for your help!
Brandon

HELP! Please.
I am a new iMac user. For weeks, the system ran perfect. This morning, I tried to synch my iCal with Google Calendar to let others have access to my events. Somehow, after the sync, all events at my iCal suddenly disappeared. Not just that, the list of calendars (private, business, etc.) was gone too. I then tried to synch iCal with all the events stored in my iPhone, but that only lead to my iPhone calendar being completely deleted too. I am totally desparate now. What happened? I then tried to use Time Machine to restore. But in earlier time machine dates, there was no calendar folder which I could use to replace mine. But I could not find a calendar folder there. Thank you for helping. Kind regards from Munich, Germany.

Restoring a folder from time machine.

I have updated to 10.7.4 and after having problems with "home" directory permissions, I reset the home directory permissions as per "http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4040". My filesaving problems seemed to be ok after that.
Time machine has since performed a backup but to test a problem I had before upgrading, I again tried to restore a folder from time machine. The folder was in ~library/applications support/"appname"/"folder"... I deleted the old folder first (after copying it of course).
The folder restore failed with this message:-
I checked the file on the time machine backups and it shows me as the owner in group "staff" which appears fine for Lion. The old file I had copied showed the same permissions.
I restored the copied library and tried to restore a single file after a similar procedure with the same error relating to the particular file.
It seems to be a permissions problem at a higher level but at this point I seek a few pointers.
Lion seems to have broken time machine and also introduced various permission problems. The referenced doc indeed addresses that but it should not even be an issue - if Apple techos know about it why does it even happen ??
A more major issue is that there must be millions out there relying on the once reliable (and the best backup system I have aver seen in 30 years of computing) time machine for backups - if that now fails, it is basically useless. Apple techos dont seem to actually test their updates anymore - this should never happen - work arounds or not.
Appreciate any help here. I dont want to wait until I REALLY need it.
Regards.

I don't use TM, so don't know if there's a simpler solution. The issue's whether or not you want to restore the folder or not. Only you can answer that.

I need to restore iphoto library from time machine, but have a question

I need to rebuild my library but already have 5 libraries which are taking too much space on my HD to finish a complete rebuild. Is it safe to move those 5 libraries to the trash and restore the one from time machine???
thanks in advance,
Kari

IF nothing goes wrong - hardware - software - human - then you will be fine
Personally my photos are important to me and I'd purchase an external harddrive and backup everything to it first - then do the deletes/rebuild etc
Then I would continue using the new EHD for a second backup using a clone package (Carbon Copy Cloner or SUperDuper)
LN

Help with restoring Address Book from Time Machine

Problem: I really, really need to retrieve someone's number. I know it'll be in an old version of my Address Book. I can see when I open time Machine that my address book is backed up, but no matter the date I go to, it says the Address Book was last modified in 2012! I know for a fact I've updated (and backed up) the Address Book many times since then.
Whenever I try to restore the Address Book, I do Time Machine > Applications > Address Book > 'restore'. But whenever I do this, the mac refuses to open the restored Address Book because it's 'required by mac OS X'.
I don't understand.
Please, how on earth do I dredge my Address Book from the depths of Time Machine?
Please help!
M

Hello mb9236,
Thank you for the details of the issue you are experiencing with restoring a contact from Time Machine.
It sounds like you are trying to restore the Address Book application. The Address Book application is just the application and does not include the content in Address Book.
Instead, you will want to open Address Book and then launch Time Machine and restore your contacts from there. Use the steps below to restore your contacts form a previous date (in step one instead of opening Mail or Finder, be sure you have Address Book open and in focus):
If you use Time Machine to back up your computer, you can easily bring back one or more items you’ve lost, or recover older versions of files you’ve changed.
Open a window for the item you want to restore. For example, if you accidentally deleted a file from your Documents folder, open the Documents folder. If you want to recover an email message, open your inbox in Mail.
If you’re missing an item from the desktop, you don’t need to open a window.
Click the Time Machine icon in the Dock, or open the Time Machine menu in the menu bar and choose Enter Time Machine. If you back up to a Time Capsule or other network disk, a message briefly appears while Time Machine connects your computer to the backup disk.
Use the arrows or the timeline along the right side of your screen to browse through all the snapshots and backups Time Machine created. Gray tick marks on the timeline represent snapshots stored on your internal drive (portable computers only). Pink tick marks represent backups stored on your backup disk.
If you need more information about an item, double-click to preview it. The windows in Time Machine behave just like Finder windows, so you can open folders, click items in the sidebar, and use the search field in the upper-right corner of the window.
When you find the item you want to restore, select it, and then click Restore. You can restore individual items, multiple items, folders, or your entire hard disk. The restored item is returned to its original location. For example, if the item was found in the Documents folder, it is returned to the Documents folder. Time Machine may ask if you want to re-create one or more folders in order to return a restored item to its original location.
If an item you restore has the same name as another item on your computer, you’re asked if you want to keep the current item, the restored item, or both.
You can use Time Machine from within many applications. For example, you can open Address Book and then click the Time Machine icon in the Dock to recover contacts you may have accidentally deleted, or open iPhoto and then click the Time Machine icon in the Dock to view past versions of your iPhoto albums.
OS X Lion: Restore items backed up with Time Machine
https://support.apple.com/kb/PH4256
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
Best,
Sheila M.

Restoring deleted Mailbox from Time Machine

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for